The Honor Of God

In today’s First Things    http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=844    Catholic writer and apologist Mark Shea counters other writers contention that the Harry Potter books are occult, neo-gnostic or both. Mark specifically mentions Michael O’Brien’s article “Harry Potter and “the Death of God” http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/aug/07082003.html wherein Michael makes his case: “We might also consider for a moment the fact that no sane parents would give their children books which portrayed a set of “good” pimps and prostitutes valiantly fighting a set of “bad” pimps and prostitutes, and using the sexual acts of prostitution as the thrilling dynamic of the story. By the same token we should ask ourselves why we continue to imbibe large doses of poison in our cultural consumption, as if this were reasonable and normal living, as if the presence of a few vegetables floating in a bowl of arsenic soup justifies the long-range negative effects of our diet. Leaving aside a wealth of such arguments, let us consider Lev Grossman’s insight.

“The death of God?” many a reader will respond. “Surely he is making too much of the matter! Aren’t we discussing a single phenomenon in a vast sea of cultural phenomena? And aren’t there a lot of positive values in these books and films - even some edifying moments of courage and sacrifice? And isn’t it all about love?” Yes, in a sense it is. But what kind of love? What kind of sacrifice? And for what purpose?

The series is also about the usefulness of hatred and pride, malice toward your real or perceived enemies, seeking and using secret knowledge, lies, cunning, contempt, and sheer good luck in order to defeat whatever threatens you or stands in the path of your desires. It is a cornucopia of other false messages: The end justifies the means. Nothing is as it seems. No one can really be trusted, except those whom you feel comfortable with, who support your aims and make you feel good about yourself. Killing others is justified if you are good and they are bad. Conservative people are bad, anti-magic dogmatists are really bad and deserve whatever punishment they get (hence the delicious retributions against the Dursleys). The ultimate cause of evil is rejection of magic: the arch-villain Voldemort, for example, first went off track when he became a dysfunctional boy abandoned by his anti-magic father.”

Mark vehemently disagrees:

• Charges of Occultism: The simple fact is this: The books are not occultic. Magic is not real, as Rowling repeatedly has had to state to interviewers who ask her if she “believes” in it. The magic of Harry is, as John Granger points out, “incantational,” not “invocational,” exactly like the magic of Gandalf. Born with the talent for magic, Gandalf says the magic words and fire leaps forth from his staff, just as from Harry’s wand. No principalities or powers are invoked in HP. Indeed, if any words are “invocational” they are the prayer to Elbereth and Gilthoniel uttered in Middle Earth. Yet nobody accuses Tolkien of promoting the worship of false gods. That’s because we understand Tolkien’s fictional subcreation and its rootedness in Christian thought. I suggest Christian critics try to extend Rowling the same charity.

• Guilt by Association: Nuff said.

• The Charge of Gnosticism: Michael O’Brien et al have made a career of arguing that Harry is an elaborate anti-Christian gnostic myth teaching that we can become gods without God by the mastery of hidden knowledge.

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Not being an expert on the Harry Potter books, in fact I haven’t even read any of them, I will follow with interest this debate that I find both fascinating and yet very curious in that we have two Catholic writers who are renowned in their particular areas ( Mark Shea as a writer of apologetics and Bible studies and Michael O’Brien as a brilliant novelist and superb artist) in a very fundamental disagreement over something that, one would think, should be either black or white. Perhaps that’s the key to this entire Harry Potter matter; evil very rarely presents itself in simple black but cunningly prefers to attract the prey through the subtle shades of a preternaturally mysterious allure.  

“Lev Grossman, in the July 23, 2007, issue of Time magazine, writes, “If you want to know who dies in Harry Potter, the answer is easy: God.” In this he has expressed the core problem with the Potter series. There is much that could be written, and has been written, about the specific problems in the books. Without neglecting the valid point that good fiction need not be overtly Christian, need not be religious at all, we might ponder a little the fact that the central metaphor and plot engines of the series are activities (witchcraft and sorcery) absolutely prohibited by God. We might also consider for a moment the fact that no sane parents would give their children books which portrayed a set of “good” pimps and prostitutes valiantly fighting a set of “bad” pimps and prostitutes, and using the sexual acts of prostitution as the thrilling dynamic of the story. By the same token we should ask ourselves why we continue to imbibe large doses of poison in our cultural consumption, as if this were reasonable and normal living, as if the presence of a few vegetables floating in a bowl of arsenic soup justifies the long-range negative effects of our diet. Leaving aside a wealth of such arguments, let us consider Lev Grossman’s insight.

“The death of God?” many a reader will respond. “Surely he is making too much of the matter! Aren’t we discussing a single phenomenon in a vast sea of cultural phenomena? And aren’t there a lot of positive values in these books and films—even some edifying moments of courage and sacrifice? And isn’t it all about love?” Yes, in a sense it is. But what kind of love? What kind of sacrifice? And for what purpose? The series is also about the usefulness of hatred and pride, malice toward your real or perceived enemies, seeking and using secret knowledge, lies, cunning, contempt, and sheer good luck in order to defeat whatever threatens you or stands in the path of your desires. It is a cornucopia of other false messages: The end justifies the means. Nothing is as it seems. No one can really be trusted, except those whom you feel comfortable with, who support your aims and make you feel good about yourself. Killing others is justified if you are good and they are bad. Conservative people are bad, anti-magic dogmatists are really bad and deserve whatever punishment they get (hence the delicious retributions against the Dursleys). The ultimate cause of evil is rejection of magic: the arch-villain Voldemort, for example, first went off track when he became a dysfunctional boy abandoned by his anti-magic father. Then there’s the sex in the atmosphere, usually latent but growing with each volume and culminating in domestic bliss for the central characters at the end of the final volume. Yes, Harry faces near-satanic evils, passes through an unceasing trial of conflict and woe, triumphs against insurmountable odds, saves the world, marries Ginny and brings forth with her a new generation of little witches and wizards. If it were a spoof or satire we might laugh. But it presents itself as very serious stuff, this festival of noxious half-truths and overt falseness, interwoven so conveniently with some positive values, some attractive role-modeling, and the timeless authorial device of an under-dog orphan as the hero/anti-hero of the series. So pleasurable, so thrilling at every turn. So deathly and hollow.

But that is the point, isn’t it. If the universe in which we live is not “hallowed” (sacred, holy) but rather hollow and deadly, then we must do what we can to change it, right? There is no God, apparently, so we must be our own gods. If there is no father (as every orphan knows) than we must be our own fathers. A tough job for anyone to do, but with the help of some incredible powers it can be done. And even if there is, after all, something in existence a little more than the material world and this materialist magic, can it be trusted? Definitely not, according to the story. There are hints of other realms in the Potter series, immaterial or metaphysical dimensions devoid of any reference to a higher moral order. But these are window-dressing to the cosmology Rowling establishes. Throughout the series there is overwhelming evidence that a Gnostic worldview is being slowly but surely presented. In fact, it is a new form of that ancient archipelago of heresies, a neo-gnosticism that borrows remnants of Judeo-Christian symbols and mixes them with cultic concepts of life and afterlife. For example, toward the end of the final volume, Harry’s headmaster and mentor, Dumbledore, meets with Harry in a nebulous otherworldly zone, after Dumbledore’s death and Harry’s pseudo-death, before the latter’s mysterious “resurrection.” Yet even these and other metaphysical references are merely used to serve the author’s real goal, which is the exaltation of the humanist ideal. Such humanism cannot long survive without a “spirituality” of some kind or other—and what better spirituality for Homo Sine Deo than one which offers the thrills and rewards of the preternatural, without moral accountability to God. One might call this, paradoxically, the religion of secular humanism. In this religion, as in most other religions, the world is gravely threatened and needs its saviour. What, then, is a lovable hero to do in this situation? He must grow up, it goes without saying, and he does so throughout the seven tales by coming into the realization of his inherent semi-divine powers. These are never referred to as god-like powers because that would be a tacit admission of some kind of higher authority, and Potterworld will admit no absolute hierarchy in creation.”

Michael O’Brien’s article “Harry Potter and the Death of God” at his StudiObrien website.  While you are there enjoy Michael’s beautiful art! http://studiobrien.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=151&Itemid=69

Michael O’Brien’s author page at Ignatius Insight: http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/authors/michaelobrien.asp